Without much interesting happening here, this page has a couple of things that initially jump out and lead to slightly interesting conclusions.

Completely exhausted from the hike, Stenfalk keels over and “coughs blood that is surprisingly dark, nearly purple” (162).  When hitting the oxygen, Stenfalk’s blood should become more red.  Scientifically, the dark red, or purple, blood could mean that Stenfalk was simply extremely oxygen deprived, which would make sense in his situation.  However, this purple blood could allude to a Purple Heart, designated for military men and women of the United States who are injured in battle.  This would hint at two things for us: one that Straka saw S’s fight and his own fight as very important to the world, and a full on war, and two, that he has some sort of awarness of the U.S. Military system, perhaps another clue that Summersby was Straka.

Straka also places his characters in a “field of spent wildflowers” (162).  His denotation of spent communicates to us that something here has been used up.  Since flowers often indicate some sort of love, Straka could be slightly explaining to F.X.C. that he has used up all of what he has, and that he has nothing left for love.

The most interesting part of this page was Stenfalk’s request that the rest “go” and “start looking for a place we can hide” (162).  While in this situation, we often see a hero decide to sacrifice him or herself for the greater good, Stenfalk sends the rest on, while insists “someone strong enough to carry [him] up” waits behind with him.  Maybe Straka is making some offhand comment about Ekstrom, who Stenfalk represents, or maybe something else completely different is going on that is non-apparent at this point.

However, what can be drawn out from all of this is that Ekstrom is most likely not Straka, as he would not have portrayed himself in such a weak manor.